Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex TV HD Media Player: Versatile, but Lacks Polish - freemanspoicken

At a Glint

Expert's Rating

Pros

• Quickly setup and easy navigation
• Support for a wide range of Internet services

Cons

• Network playback can embody slow
• Some features available only via the remote

Our Finding of fact

Seagate delivers a full-conspicuous media streamer at an affordable price, just it's non quite as polished as the WD Telly Live Plus.

Looking for a mobile media streamer that canful handle music, photos, and videos from your home web and the Cyberspace? The Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex TV ($100, monetary value as of August 5, 2022) is one of the best in a growing field of attractive candidates. The GoFlex Television set shapes dormie as a worthy competitor to its Western Digital rival, the WD TV Live Plus, though the slenderly pricier WD TV maintains a flyspeck advantage in features, interface, and speed.

Like the WD TV Current Plus, the FreeAgent GoFlex TV is a connected box that lets you play media from computers, media servers, and storage devices on your network, or from USB flash surgery hard drives plugged in real time into the device (you can also insert a portable GoFlex problematical-drive module directly into the GoFlex TV, which eliminates extra clutter). The GoFlex TV supports a generous numeral of Internet services, including Flickr, Netflix on demand, Picasa, YouTube, a slew of popular sites through MediaFly, and other sites via category widgets (such as Finance).

But too like the WD TV Live Asset, the GoFlex TV lacks constitutional Wi-Fi hold up: You can minimal brain dysfunction that via an optional $50 USB adapter, just be fain for degraded media playback if you live in an area where lots of other Wi-Fi networks are competitory for scrimpy bandwidth.

Setting up the unit took only a couple of moments; I get to give Seagate high First Baron Marks of Broughton for the unit's simplicity. I hooked it up to my HDTV with an HDMI wire I had present (the GoFlex TV supports component, asterid dicot family, and HDMI connections, but provides cables for exclusive the first two), and then linked IT to my network via the included ethernet cable plugged into a HomePlug AV switch over.

After I connected the AC adapter to a office outlet, a twin of screens for setting language and date/clip appeared, simply no promote action was compulsory: Inside a minute some, the place screen popped up. I was immediately able to surf both my home mesh and the Internet services victimization the building block's remote, which is somewhat larger than most half-size remotes merely still smaller than a typical TV OR cable length remote. I quickly set finished my Netflix on-call for service (the screen displays a code that you must type into an activation projection screen along the Netflix Internet site).

Navigating is fairly simple since the national screen provides access to media in several ways, including some that are deliberately redundant. At the upside is a row of options for media types (Music, Photos, Video), as well as Internet and local-network location. Then comes a wrangle of shortcuts to the Cyberspace services. Eventually it gives you a row of icons for navigating all directly connected and local-network devices–be they USB flash drives, GoFlex drives you may have plugged into the GoFlex TV, networked PCs, or media servers (DLNA or Samba shares).

Simply playing or viewing material, specially over a local network, can be slow. Sometimes files take quite a a few moments to appear (Seagate says this is because the twist is building an index finger). Also, the GoFlex TV doesn't support file operations: You can't copy files from a web location to a local labor, a WD TV feature that can be useful if streaming over the network is poky and you don't want to have to use a PC to transport media to a local drive. And in my tests, just about media files inexplicably failed to romp at all–I got several messages saying that MP3 files I had ripped from CDs were in an invalid format.

Though the home screen makes digging up content supereasy, I was somewhat disappointed to find that a lot of features–including some network settings surgery playback adjustments (such Eastern Samoa slideshow options)–are accessible only if you click the menu button on the distant. I appreciate that Seagate wanted to reduce screen clutter, simply this system makes these features a little less discoverable.

For masses who personal a GoFlex drive, Seagate provides Media Sync package that makes it easy to channel and update the contents of a PC or Mack media library to the drive. But you have to connect the get to the computer to perform updates–you can't update it when it's connected to the GoFlex TV.

The GoFlex TV supports a broad range of DRM-free media formats; IT's also the only media streamer I've seen that lets you romp DivX video. And thanks to a deal Seagate made with Paramount, the GoFlex TV provides a have for designating IT as an authorized playback device for Paramount movies you've purchased and stored on digital media (many GoFlex drives were sold with the movies preloaded, so you could take i them once you freelance online to unlock them).

The device's Netflix support is first, allowing you to play videos that you've placed in your on-demand queue on the Netflix Internet site. The unit of measurement doesn't support the newer Netflix interface that appears on Roku and WD Television Live Plus streamers, which lets you browse and add content to your queue directly from your TV screen. The omission is hardly a fatal flaw, only the feature's convenience is undeniable.

Other GoFlex TV services looked fairly similar to the way they suffice on other Cyberspace-connected media streamers–you can log on to your YouTube account to view (and depute) favorites, you can search for photos on Flickr (but you can't log-in to your account to well view your own), etc..

Overall, I institute the GoFlex TV to be utile, with easy setup and a bouffant option of Internet content As major pluses. It is on the slow incline, however, and the interface could be better (especially for accessing settings and Netflix movies). For $20 more, I give the WD Television receiver Live Plus the butt.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/508427/seagate_freeagent_goflex_tv_hd_media_player-2.html

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